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Drug from GM animal gets thumbs down

Protein made in goats' milk doesn't make it to market.

An application to market a drug made in the milk of genetically modified (GM) goats was turned down this week. The decision means that, despite more than a decade of work using GM animals to produce drugs, no products have yet been approved for use.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on February 24, 2006 12:17 PM |

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I find your report very disturbing that a human antimicrobial peptide (lactoferrin) could find easy approval and widespread use as a food additive. Aren't there concerns that this could lead to evolution of resistant bacteria?

Posted by: Mike Serfas | February 27, 2006 08:18 PM

The use of animals to produce human biological products is both lazy science and dangerous for public health. Why risk transmitting prions (BSE -Mad cow disease) with the use of foetal calf serum in human vaccines, or SV40 virus in polio vaccine, through the use of monkey kidney cells? Leaving animals out of the equation means people get a safer product, e.g. synthetic heparin is now available instead of the animal-sourced version, because science and industry decided to put their minds to it.

Posted by: Andre Menache | March 2, 2006 04:29 PM

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